‘This Is The Way The World Ends … With … A Whimper’?

From Heffner To ‘Me Too’

The ‘me too’ crisis shows little sign of abating almost one year on since revelations started pouring in about Hollywood’s Harvey Weinstein. The allegations regarding the film producer’s behaviour in his circles relate to a lifestyle perceived as ‘repugnant’ and ‘abhorrent’ by those in charge at the Oscars. Apparently, the ‘freedom’ Weinstein is claimed to have chosen to enjoy is viewed as severely compromising the rights of other individuals as vouchsafed by the legal system, accounting for the strong reaction.

In September, 2017 – a month before the Weinstein headlines – the world observed the passing of Hugh Heffner, the man who strove toward ‘emancipation’ of the Western world, and through the West of the entire human population. In the process of giving shape to his zeal he earned considerable wealth and fame for himself even as his involvements would often be looked upon unfavourably by many.

Heffner’s impetus rose in the 1950’s after the horrors of the Second World War had ended, and the process of reconstruction was on to heal the deep psychological scars left behind, alongside the huge physical devastation all around. Understandably, his initiative would have set out to rescue humanity from the discontents of civilization that Freud had alluded to in his 1929 book Civilization and its Discontents[1].

These discontents, according to Freud, originate with libidinal repression. The repression in place in the Abrahamic tradition that looks upon sex as a sin, starting with the concept of the original sin, has shaped the psyche of the West for millennia, which may be viewed as accounting for a tremendous suffering for the people in its wake. Freud extends his broad model of analysis to the practice of all religions in his attempt to free the world from suffering as the scientist looks forward to an unhindered flow of the pleasure principle, as far as possible, away from the unwelcome effects of religious influence on humanity in thwarting the flow. This opened up the venture for Hugh Heffner.

Freud’s Stand

Of course, Freud is quite aware that the path to happiness is strewn with severe obstacles, — physiological, physical or societal — where the need arises to take recourse to the reality principle, and curtail the course of the pleasure principle in making room for necessary adjustments in order to avoid unwelcome suffering on the way. The only purpose of life, however, is to follow the pleasure principle, according to Freud, rooted in libidinal satisfaction[2]. Various adjustments to it, including taking to yoga, which he sees as an attempt at ‘killing off the instincts’ that fall in line with the pleasure principle[3], are no substitute to the instant gratification provided by the senses, necessary though they might be to avoid sufferings on the way. Yoga, according to Freud, lands us in a situation where the subject ‘has sacrificed his life … [having] only achieved the happiness of quietness’[4]. In the same vein, Freud does not see the intrinsic worth of the value beauty either, nor an independent, ‘elevated’ or ‘sublime’ state around it in life. Life after all is for the primary libidinal force of the pleasure principle in his system, and requires us to make adjustments along the way in our pursuit of its true purpose, following on the principle. Here there is a built-in opposition between true human satisfaction and civilization history has created for humanity. Hugh Heffner simply follows the cues from Freud in the former’s attempt at establishing humans on their right footing toward ‘true satisfaction’ in the teeth of the demands of civilization. In other words, the negative impacts of civilization on humanity at the macro level that Freud indicates in his theory leads to the practical ventures on Hugh Heffner’s part to heal them, also at the macro level. People following the path carved out by the latter keep engaged in the art of satisfying themselves in pursuit of the pleasure principle while they are not understood to be hurting others, thereby making everyone happy in the process. Such indeed is the claim.

The Shortcomings

But are people generally happy following the new way? Certainly Heffner has brought about a libidinal revolution. The activities that the likes of Weinstein are alleged to have been involved in are undreamt of for practice in public life a hundred years ago. The film magnet has in line once respected celebrities like Bill Cosby, Morgan Freeman and many others. Should we look upon the acts they are said to have indulged in as aberrations on the road to satisfaction that Heffner paved? Is there room for contentment in human psychology after all that provides peace of mind conspicuously missing in today’s world? How does the path to human happiness created by Heffner fare with boredom and depression that unfortunately has gripped the human race today? According to the psychological theory of Freud there certainly is little room for the ‘oceanic feeling’ of spirituality that Romain Rolland chances to mention in his letter to the psychologist[5]. The question that naturally props up here is: If things are in balance, sandwiched between the pursuit of pleasure introduced in the way of Heffner and the overarching rule of law resting on the foundation of human rights, why are so very many leaders in the public eye opening themselves up to be perpetrators of the indignity of sexual exploitation in public and private life? Is the legal system, fortified by its dosage of punishment, strong enough to protect human rights while there is an ongoing promotion and propagation of the new mood of satisfaction that libidinal freedom is supposed to ensure? Are Weinstein and his ilk, in other words, dragged onto the slippery slope of life triggered by the hype society promotes on the lead of Hugh Heffner, while they fail to keep themselves within the safe confines of the legal system, as if under a spell?

Suicide on the heels of deep rooted depression resulting from the new lifestyle is common today in societies all over. ‘Your body is not a temple, it’s an amusement park,’ Anthony Bourdain had said during the prime of his life. The world is grieving the loss of this celebrated personality who worked out the mantra he had uttered, reflecting the belief of so many today, accepting it as sacrosanct in a religious fashion. Life indeed is worthy of reverence, and the body we have is not a focus of experiments and excesses. We do lose our own sustainability following pursuit of satisfaction structured on the Freudian model in everyday life, as we are led to suspect to have happened in this case, in line with many other celebrities and their innumerable followings. The model is based on the hypothesis the scientist has insisted we put our faith in, even though it does not corroborate with facts in so far as living life based on the hypothesis makes people terribly discontented, bored and depressed to the point of being suicidal, instead of making us really happy. The prevailing lifestyle of today that touches us all is frivolous and undignified to say the least. Self-aggrandizement stands in the way of self-respect, leaving little prospect for respect for others to grow. No wonder, Weinstein faces charges for actions that originate from lack of a minimum respect for oneself and others.

We for ourselves, however, prefer to see things in the world as they are, and not through the lens of Freud’s which, though granted consistency, does not reflect truth. Freud’s theory does not enable us to apprehend or explain the fact of human existence as a whole, in as much as the theory postulates reduction of human values, including the aesthetic ones, to the libidinal instinct.

The Sustainable Alternative Freud Ignored

There are two options Freud recognizes as open to us humans: repression and its opposite — unhindered satisfaction. Since repression is not acceptable, satisfaction is after all the only alternative worth pursuing according to him. He begins his 1929 book Civilisation and its Discontents with a sharp criticism of the ‘oceanic feeling’ in the spiritual domain that Rolland praisingly refers to in his letter to the psychologist. “I cannot discover this ‘oceanic feeling’ in myself,” Freud declares. “It is not easy to deal scientifically with feelings,” he continues[6]. Freud does not wait to criticize the details of a theory built on the basis of the feeling; he rather hastens to methodologically dislodge the feeling itself to start with, as not the right item suitable in the machinery of science. The possibility of profitably cultivating the feeling is not open to him by any stretch of imagination outside the domain of his view of science as he prefers to treat psychology in the genetic mode where the libido has the place of primacy for him. Rolland, on the other hand, who is a creative writer, has come to be aware of the feeling from the Eastern, Hindu tradition where there are spiritual procedures in place to cultivate the state of the feeling, often in a process of gradual intensity of attainment. The procedures may better be called spiritual, rather than religious, as there is a mark of universality on them dissociated from the specific variances of religions, signifying compatibility with science. They accompany a state of inner harmony where the libido is not repressed as ‘sin’, but is situated at a creative platform in harmony and balance with life, as members of the same as well as the opposite sexes get a spontaneous care and respect issuing from the attained state of inner harmony generating the feeling. This is not just a state of libido management either, with a view to equipping an individual with the ability to navigate in society even as one’s attention is always fixed on an unrepressed perusal of the pleasure principle. Here at stake is the self respect of the individual which is the basis for respect for the others, as we mentioned before. To repeat, the allegation against “the Weinsteineans'” lack in self-respect, accounts for their inability to treat others with minimum respect while using them as means to the satisfaction of the pleasure principle. The cultivation of the oceanic feeling seems under the circumstances quite logical, and scientific indeed, contrary to Freud’s position. It is the third alternative that Freud chooses to ignore to start with, along with accommodating the aesthetic as well as ethical values in his theory, which ground pursuit of science in the right setting in life without allowing the values to be reduced to the scientific domain.

It is this oceanic feeling that Swami Vivekananda wanted to propagate to humanity for us to be able to rightly belong to the world in its individual, social as well as ecological settings, safeguarding science from becoming a tool for destruction at any of the levels. Rolland, the great creative thinker, was inspired by Vivekananda’s ideas to communicate the concept of oceanic feeling to Freud. Unfortunately the writer failed in his attempt due to no shortcoming on the his own part. Freud was not receptive enough as he stuck dogmatically to his own theory. The outcome was Hugh Heffner and the Weinsteinians.[7] The task lies ahead of us today to rebuild the unwieldy system we have in place at the macro level, so that the true, secular spirituality, which goes hand in hand with science, becomes the unifying tie for humans that Roman Rolland is so keen to impress upon his scientist friend Freud who is ready and willing to sacrifice creative human values at the altar of a trimmed and abstracted view of science. The ideas of Romain Rolland do not generate from any scriptural commandments, but from phenomenological experience instead which is the building block of psychology leading to creative living.


[1] Tr. by Joan Riviere, Revised and Newly Edited by James Strachey, The Hogarth Press, London, 1963. The book is one of the most prominent creations by Freud to disseminate his own ideas.

[2] Ibid, pp. 12-13.

[3] Ibid, p. 16.

[4] Ibid

[5] Ibid, , pp. 1-2, 9.

[6] Ibid, pp. 1-2, 9.

[7] For more discussion on the concept of the oceanic feeling vis a vis Freud’s stand relating to it see Ethics in the Mahabharata, by Sitansu S Chakravarti, Munshiram Manoharlal, New Delhi, 2006, pp 112-20.


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How will Character in Leadership Take Shape?

Who we Are and What we Do

At an innovative address delivered in September, 2016 at the Darden School of Business, University of Virginia, Dominic Barton of McKinsey & Company emphatically suggests to students that in the midst of all the thorough and wide ranging changes sweeping across the world, the foremost expectation of the leader in the 21st century concerns “who you are versus what you do.” Thus character, not action, is the primary focus for leadership according to him. The reason, we suppose, is that it is on the basis of the traits in one’s character that actions take shape. Actions following from the leader are not necessarily pre-determined, and mechanically coded in formulas providing action plans for situations. They are instead products of the imagination and perception of the leader as she engages herself in the hard task of combining the macro as well as the micro dimensions together the very same moment, while holding fast to her resilience and decisiveness, all the way.

The modern day situation poses all the more creative challenge to the leader as tremendous changes take place in technology, economic power and demographic structures, and political as well as other forms of unrest and upheaval continue shaking the world with increasing regularity. Barton asserts that selflessness and judgment are the prime requisites of the leader in the circumstances. The leader is not born with the character demanded of her, however; it is imbibed in her through practice in life. The question that naturally comes to mind is: How do the virtues constituting character traits take shape in the leader? Solely through personal will? Or, does the society have its part to play in contributing to develop the virtues in her? Is the role of the schools of management enough for the society to deliver the needed impetus to trigger the process of inspiration and transformation, or is something needed at a more fundamental level?

In a recently published book entitled ‘Character and Environment,’ the virtue ethicist Ronald Sandler pleads for the role of character in giving desirable shape to the state of the environment around us. The same question crops up here: How to shape character in the right way? What role does society play here? What, in other words, are the fundamental virtues that society needs to promote, and in which ways, paving the way to promote individual character development in a way that is truly pluralistic?

Business Leadership grounded in Harmony Within

We need to ask ourselves whether the world we have built for our children is conducive for them to develop the needed kinds of virtues, with bullying rampant at schools and online, along with widespread open gateway to instant happiness and satisfaction through the easy availability of drugs and alcohol. Much of this is an acceptable lifestyle indeed promoted by today’s pop icons whose heavy dependence on sex and other pleasures for expression of human freedom finds unhindered access to the impressionable, tender minds. There is little room here for promotion of harmony within, a concept that does not fit into the texture of the prevailing mood and is rejected as out of fashion. The political world, focused as it is on pursuing and maintaining power, does not pay these considerations much attention. The academic world, engaged in the task of busying itself protecting the cause of freedom in society on the basis of freedom of choice ends up supporting the cause of maximal, instant gratification, and lets the virtue pass by unnoticed. The business world with its focus on expansion does not feel inclined either at first blush. However, since the mandate of business is to deliver and succeed, performance has to be measured thoroughly. And here is where Dominic Barton’s ideas are relevant, as they are meant for action that yields results. Barton does not stop with what are traditionally considered strictly business moves in the narrow sense. Keeping the long-term perspective in view, he stresses the need for business to be involved in societies, to go into communities where it operates, and in the process even motivate leaders at the governmental levels to be with them.

The latest Cape Breton, Nova Scotia teenage suicide as a result of school related cyber bullying on a girl of thirteen points to the vicious atmosphere prevailing at schools, and society in general where the school belongs, with human values often completely missing. Building of character that Barton insists on at the very outset of his talk as prerequisite to actions initiated is possible only with the trait harmony within taking shape in the individual, from which the virtues of honesty, decisiveness and resilience, which Barton considers so important in the 21st century leader, follow. With lack of human dignity pronounced in today’s world, while the torch of human rights and freedom of choice is held up high by social activism all around, society certainly does not promote harmony within, the building block of character.

If the leader in the business world is called upon to connect with the community, as Barton does, can she ignore the facts of prevalence of psychological depression at an epidemic proportion, large scale suicide rate among students, the culture of sexual violence and exploitation at school and the workplace including the military, the opioid addiction culture with associated overdose across an increasing range of population? She cannot. For, character building has its ethical dimension which cannot be shrugged off while character is encouraged in the business world, where honesty is emphasized. After all, business ethics does not have a foundation different from the general normative ethics. The call for inclusiveness that Barton issues at the business world of today to prepare for tomorrow does not limit itself to the physical dimension only of trips into the communities, but also the inner dimension associated. In fact, he praisingly cites the State of Minnesota as a role model where a group of business leaders goes into to the community with the Governor and local politicians to look into ways of improving the education system with immigrants’ considerations included. Here of course the inner, human dimension needs the required focus starting at the beginning of the planning process in terms of where and what the education will ultimately lead to.

Yoga and Sustainable Leadership

Human rights and freedom of choice, important though they are in our life, can hardly shoulder the burden for the foundation of ethics when human dignity deserves our attention. For, values in society resting solely on them happen to be based on the legal system while human dignity becomes a casualty, as we have seen in the Ghomeshi case in our blog entry ‘Global Colonization of the Human Mind.’ In ethics imperatives and commandments of the legal system are not our preferred language forms. Human dignity, in our view, can be safeguarded only with harmony within, the most central character trait. When it is missing, all the social epidemics we have been talking about set in, as has happened today.

With harmony within built into character, a bond of unity takes shape with others around as well as with the environment we are in. Unity is the  etymological meaning of ‘Yoga.’ In his talk Barton uses the expression ‘Anglo-Saxon capitalism’ while criticizing the fact that ‘too much microscope, not enough telescope going on today’ is the existing practice in the business world. In the telescopic or ‘long-termist’ vision he promotes through the involvement of business leaders in community building, among other things, the concept of Yoga in the broad sense of building the bonds of unity in harmony, issuing forth from the character trait harmony within, becomes extremely relevant. Here the ancient thoughts from India wait for amelioration of the problems of the world where Barton wants the business leaders to take a lead. They will certainly not be counsellors, nor yoga instructors, but leaders who would try to ensure that values get a strong mooring in society with the requisite foundation of harmony within set, so that community building can be continued on its basis.

Swami Vivekananda came to the West as the first messenger of Yoga during the closing years of the 19th century. Barton emphasizes the importance of philosophical thinking in the business world. Here we have done some philosophical building on his innovative thoughts, on the occasion of the International Yoga Day in 2017 when Swami Vivekananda’s presentation of ideas connected with Yoga, character building and the other philosophical thoughts he laid down by way of explication of the ancient Indian philosophy pick up an added significance.


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American Election 2016: The Moral it Leaves in its Trail

Democracy at Stake

The fallout of the recent US election is yet to settle to a reasonable extent in  order to bring relief to the country and the world. What the long election battle in 2016 brought to the fore is the strain to which democracy has become subjected today. A system designed to deliver on a lofty promise to humanity shows clear signs of a deep fissure at the very root. America is still visibly divided after a long, acrimonious election war lacking in the least of decency or dignity, and ending logically in disunity fostered all the way. In the process the pillar of modern democracy, viz., the political party system, has been reduced to a virtual redundancy.

Democracy can hold a society on its journey to a desirable direction only if the people participate in the process with sincerity and earnestness, inspired by leaders worthy of emulation. This certainly is not a mechanical journey; the ethics involved here is not reducible to the narrow binds of the legal system. Surely, nobody claims with success that law has been compromised in the recently concluded American election process. We are puzzled as to which direction we follow from here on. It is not that plans of action are lacking. But where is the spirit that will ignite the plans to success? Again, does success consist just in translating a blueprint into action in life?

A New Approach to Today’s Problems Rooted in Our Past

The time has come to realize that old, tried solutions to apparently similar looking problems are no longer going to work, in as much as the challenges we face today have qualitatively different characters with their roots having gathered strength over the centuries. Solutions at new dimensions need to be explored and pursued as new insights are desperately needed. The ISIS catastrophe cannot be addressed the way the world wars were, not simply because new technologies, including web-based, are available for use to the perpetrators of violence today in order to inspire and train their recruits across the globe, even in ‘safe, protected’ places defying distance and physical barriers. The very fundamentalist sentiments that ISIS harps on indeed were conveniently channelized by the colonial powers for their own parochial gains in the 19th and 20th centuries. John Stuart Mill, who laid the solid, theoretical foundation of democracy in modern times, was a supporter of colonial rule, strangely enough, for the betterment of humanity, and actively engaged himself in shaping and strengthening the British colonial domination of India for a good part of his life. In history, the fundamentalist strand of Islam came in handy for British effectiveness in tightening her colonial grip with practice of the policy of divide and rule. When measures are launched to address today’s unique phenomenon of global terrorism threatening the whole world, which, paradoxically, does not spare even the ‘own people’ in the land of the perpetrators of fundamentalist attack, they certainly must be tough, and military, too, even though that may not be all. Certainly the measures must not be racially biased, nor just the open arm policy of the politically correct liberalism of the opposite extreme. They must incorporate an honest, realistic attitude sympathetic to the well-being of all, while those taking the measures must look honest in their own turn.

Gandhi and Tagore

When Gandhi initiated his movement against the colonial rule, he didn’t direct it against the British, the ruler, but against the system. He knew that in the process of colonial exploitation, both the exploited and the exploiter suffered. He wanted to put a curb on the greed that led on to the institution of global colonial exploitation, thereby turning the way around to peaceful coexistence with fellow humans as well as nature around us, in sympathy and respect. In this he did not succeed. Greed has continued unabated till today, and the western civilization has done itself severe damage riding virtually unhindered on its wings. Unhappiness consequently is rampant in society, even when money is at hand, and the epidemic of depression is killing us in the grand new system we have built for ourselves where humanity is captive in the divisiveness created within and around. Tagore in his own poetic and thoughtful ways had cautioned the West against the greed that had taken possession over her before World War I broke out. He wrote a letter to President Roosevelt just after World War II started. No reply, however, ever reached him.

Now there is need to bring about a change within, a change in our way of looking at things, as reflected in the modes of effective pursuit of satisfaction in life based on a psychology that does not propagate myths in the name of science. This is a stride not to be contained within the rigid limits of religion that often is harshly exclusive, and fails to accommodate science, although a broad spirituality, in a secular setting outside of the confines of religion seems called for to bring about the needed change. The value contained in the broad spirituality is not dependent on positing a transcendent entity, as in the case of most religions. Pursuit of this value keeps our expectations of science in balance. An invitation to building harmony within ourselves is a broadly spiritual call not to be confined to the realm of scientific pursuit. It goes hand in hand with science, as poetry and music do, though poetry, music and spirituality cannot be reduced to science. The process is existential, and operates at the macro level, although there is a micro dimension to it in that the society must see to it that the value takes root in individuals, and becomes a pervasive trend. The administration needs to see that measures are based on human dignity where rights have their proper foundation.

Is Swami Vivekananda’s Approach More Insightful Than of Modern Critics of Religion?

Swami Vivekananda emphasized this broad spirituality during his trips to the West in the late 1890’s, taking his cue from the spirituality in India. He, however did not ever preach his religion Hinduism as a proselytizer, but rather preached the essence of it, which is spirituality as such, on the basis of which all religions can mingle together, making the world a better place to live in. His talks were not theological, based on scriptures, but rather philosophical instead, based on reason and universal human feelings. Nikola Tesla got so inspired as an academic scientist by the talks of the Swami on the Samkhya philosophy of the Hindu tradition, that he attempted to produce a mathematical proof of the thesis the Swami enunciated in his talk. The Tesla website, maintained by the Tesla Memorial Society of New York says: ‘Unfortunately Tesla failed and the solution did not come till ten years later, in a paper by Albert Einstein … .’ In ‘Is Vedanta the Future Religion?’ delivered in San Francisco in 1900, the Swami talks about a spirituality without scriptures, and no personal God for support, which has found its place of respect in the Hindu system. When Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and others today are vocal against religion in favour of science and rationality, they tend to ignore the spiritual dimension that is in need of cultivation, away from the dogmas to which religions fall prey, for becoming better human beings and toward sustenance of the world and humanity in our times. Intellect, though important, is not the saviour after all, on its own, unless it is grounded in harmony within which belongs to the spiritual dimension.

Sam Harris hopes to base normative ethics on science, while the full-fledged nature of well-being that ethics is supposed to outline as the culminating end, and the general, broad way it highlights as leading to the end, may both be shown as spiritually grounded in Virtue Ethics. Here secular philosophical reasoning comes in handy, instead of the scientific kind as Harris claims, pointing to the spiritual dimension in ethics where giving the virtue harmony within a rounded shape in life gets its proper emphasis.

The Corporate World May Take the Lead

It is a far cry to expect that the political world will venture today promoting harmony within as a value at the macro level even when taking oath in the name of God, with scripture in hand, is a long-standing custom in some political spheres. However, we might expect the corporate world to provide us leadership here. A negative attitude against smoking has been built successfully at the macro level in course of the last couple of decades. Harmony within is a positive value. It is key to the sustainability of the environment and the human race in so far as humans treat nature with respect imbued with the virtue, and are in a friendly mood among themselves as mutual enmity disappears considerably under its effect. We know, the corporate world emphasizes sustainability. If people there believe in circulating words like: ‘Sustainability starts with harmony within,’ this will go to promote the value. However, the first, and the most important, step in the right direction is being convinced that the change is needed. There are indications that leaders in the corporate world are rising lately to the demands of ethics as incorporating the key human values. Azim Premji, Chair, WIPRO, mentions the two greatest risks the world presently faces: viz., ‘the fast unfolding environmental crisis, and the acts of forces to turn this world into one filled with conflict and suspicion.’ He recognizes four principles to guide our actions in our quest for a better world: finding a common ground, having concern and respect for others, staying connected as a society, and committing to values such as integrity and honesty. He indicates that the ‘greatest fulfilment’ he has in his personal life ‘is in knowing that [his organization] has some role in shaping confident, thinking, caring and ethical human beings … .’ (The Times of India, January 3, 2017, p. 18). To repeat, the ethical human being is not a function of a thinking mind per se, but of the mind in so far as it has been brought to a state of harmony, which transcends the narrow bound of rationality of science, in the world of poetry, music and spirituality in the broad sense of the term, thereby helping enrich the human attainment of science. With harmony within achieved to an extent, humans are properly motivated to ensure that harmony is maintained without, in nature and in society.


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Global Colonization of the Human Mind

The Psychological Backdrop of the State of Modern Mind

We started our blog entries covering the pervasive prevalence of the state of mental depression in today’s world, almost of epidemic proportion, which affects us all. The acute presence of the ailment is not due primarily to chemical imbalances in the body – to be treated with medicines and supplements. The psychological backdrop of the phenomenon deserves proper attention, so that the right kind of treatment of the social malady can follow. Indeed, the root to problems pertaining to sustainability in the modern/postmodern world lies in the psychological dimension where the key to the grave ecological and political challenges we are facing at the moment also may be found. Ethics after all originates from the area of human psychology rather than our collective academic or religious bodies of knowledge. This is because if the scriptural or institutional pronouncements are ultimately contrary to human tendencies, and the wellbeing of humanity at large, they fail to hold ground.

As pointed out in our previous blog postings, it is through establishing the state of harmony within that we become effectively cautious not to cause disharmony around. Cooperating with nature, instead of exploiting her at any cost, after all becomes a congenial move on our part with proper training of the mind, and need not be induced simply through legislative compulsion. On the other hand, to the extent the virtue harmony within is found missing, the legislative measures fail to bear their result by themselves. Similar considerations hold true of other areas of ethics that deal with human interactions.

Colonialism Then and Now

The industrial colonization of lands spreading in the 18th century is generally condemned today, even by the former colonizers. However, a new kind of colonization process is in place now when the target object is not land, but the human mind as such. Here at play is the universal colonization of the human mind. No races are left out; neither is any individual, young or old. The values that humanity has cultivated through millennia are being dumped fast, and supplanted by the ones propagated by the role models emerging from the media. The worlds of entertainment as well as advertisement thrive by pushing their messages consistently through ubiquitous mass and social media channels.

Today’s popular role models, often immature and lacking life experience, are commonly found to be addicted to drugs, sometimes perishing as a result of overdoses and the like, which only goes to demonstrate an inability to physically sustain themselves in the lifestyle. One simply wonders what abiding notes of sustenance they might have in store to share with others around, — notes, in other words, that carry the full-throated message of unity instead of disparity, divisiveness and hatred accompanying violence. We are not saying there is a dearth of talented people in their midst, nor that they are bad human beings per se. What we feel is that in a very important sense they happen to be wrongly oriented, and might end up doing a disservice to society, even though unintended, however attractive they may be to their admirers.

The personalities of these role models in society take shape through denial of the very nectar of life, which is harmony within, and the message the leaders carry for others not only fails to propagate the spirit of the virtue, but often ends up going against it. The same people we see as staunch activists taking up worthy causes (commonly referred to as ‘social justice warriors’), though they often do not know, unfortunately, how to approach the causes from the proper perspective without having made enough room for the virtue in themselves. Thus, activism tends to end up in actions benefitting people in the short run, instead of laying a strong foundation for the well-being of the society.

Ethics, we must note, does not exhaust itself with actions and their results, but also accommodates the mode of their performance which often determines the choice of actions following from action plans befitting a situation.

Human Rights and Human Dignity

Swami Vivekananda had an interestingly innovative way of defining atheism. An atheist, he says, is not the one who does not believe in God, but the one who does not believe in oneself. Of course, the one who does not believe in herself has to look for external means of satisfaction, for she does not believe that the primary route to satisfaction lies within. She has never ventured within in a serious and effective way, and tends to lead others along the way she herself pursues. Here comes the area of human dignity that is basically missing in today’s culture as shaped by popular media.

Human rights we value dearly, and try to protect at all costs. Proper legislative measures are placed for the purpose. However, legislative acts by themselves, followed up with policing, in conjunction with judicial measures, are hardly sufficient. The will to respect human rights in society, as stemming from the value of human dignity, must be present to prop up the system, failing which killings on the streets of urban America go unabated, as they do on a continual basis, in stark defiance of the right to life enshrined in their constitution.

In the everyday life situation, within the precincts of the prime Canadian radio network CBC, prominent media personality Jian Ghomeshi had been defying the human right of a female employee working under him in the organization, as vouchsafed by his own formal apology in court offered recently, demonstrating the lack of dignity on his part in causing violation of the right to privacy and intimate freedom of his subordinate. The victim’s rescue calls addressed to the workplace went virtually unheeded apparently on account of the tremendous popularity the man held in the media world. Thus the world of aesthetics where the highest of human values is manifested, human dignity paradoxically becomes a casualty. This can happen only when music is treated as a commodity for sale, emphasizing its sensory attractiveness, like other commodities, as a car or a house is, ignoring to a large extent its special appeal in the world of values.

When we consider the other women who complained against Ghomeshi for mistreating them during their intimate relationships with him, they were deeply hurt as their cases were dismissed in court. However, they were thoroughly devastated in that they felt their dignity trampled upon in the judicial process they went through coming to realize that the system does not have room for its protection. This only shows that human dignity is beyond the jurisdiction of the legal system, though it is the basis of our humanity.

Harmony Within

As mentioned previously, human rights we can attempt to protect with legislative measure, though often without success if they are not grounded on respect for human dignity. The basic question is: How to ensure human dignity in society, bereft of which the rights fail to be protected? There cannot be further legislative measures for it! Putting emphasis on, and ensuring strict practice of etiquettes will not achieve the task; the formal compliance of etiquettes must need to be prompted by an inner mechanism of the internalization process where the virtue harmony within plays its role. A public figure in our case, demonstrating contempt for human dignity arising out of a lack of the virtue harmony within ends up transmitting a wrong message in society. The society in its turn had failed to instill the needed virtue, and the follow-up dignity, in him under the system in operation around him.

The concept of human dignity gets incorporated within one’s personality as harmony within grows. One gets the lead from society. Respect of human dignity needs to be taught at homes and schools; the message must also percolate from the media. Along with introduction of sex education at schools at an early level the message of respect for human dignity needs to be transmitted, viewing sex in the context of dignity and not just extraction of pleasure. The whole society needs to fall in line in a holistic way. The collusion between psychology, politics and the business world that exists today targeting the global mind for a tight colonial enslavement needs to end. Psychology must make room for the fact that pleasure does not make humans happy by itself.

When children enter shopping plazas, they need not be greeted by attractive things harmful for their health and wellbeing, placed at a proximate distance only to promote revenue generation. Eateries need to stop selling disguised poisons to make money, leaving the concern of safety largely to the discretion of the consumer.

Relevance of Swami Vivekananda’s Secular Spirituality Today

The secular world tries to protect the human being with the shield of human rights, which unfortunately does not go very far in protecting the true freedom that is her very own, — her dignity. Bereft of the rights, as the colonized people are, she can still hope and strive to gain them back and become herself only if she has her sense of dignity residing within, the faith in herself, as Swami Vivekananda points out. Today’s colonization of the human mind well succeeds in eating into the very faith in human dignity, thereby turning human beings into suffering robots. The feeling of freedom and dignity, however, still persists from the deep unconscious, even after mental colonization has set in, with the result of epidemic depression.

The modern day psychologist of the secular world often seems to advise us to look upon ourselves as rats and apes, whose real salvation lies in unhindered enjoyment of the libido, while pursuing the so-called values of the aesthetic and spiritual levels are just means of adjustment to society, as Freud will have it, – escape routes, in other words, that ultimately do not deliver the real satisfaction the individual deserves. In this secular route the aim is satisfaction which unfortunately does not satisfy. Swami Vivekananda goes beyond modernity. He has sympathy with secularism in not positing entities beyond the realm of science, though he does not want to compromise with the depth of the human mind from where satisfaction and self-reliance emerge with practice. This practice is the true meaning of yoga which belongs to the realm of secular spirituality where values lie.

For Swami Vivekananda, secular spirituality is compatible with science, though not reducible to it. The values do matter. They make the human being what she is. When the system around us seems to compromise with human dignity in promoting music and show for entertainment, we need to have a fresh look at how the system needs to be restructured in order for us to be true to ourselves and happy, prompting us to actions efficaciously beneficial for all. Here we cooperate with nature and adopt ways that are ultimately pleasing in having freed ourselves from the colonial bind.

Reflecting on the occasion of the International Yoga Day on the 23rd of June we take our inspiration in secular spirituality, which transcends the bounds of religion, from Swami Vivekananda, the yogi who first introduced yoga to the West starting with America in 1893.


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Resolving the Disquiet Around and Within – II

A Call for Inspiration from Greek Sources

There is a lot of soul-searching under way in the West for the right ethics for our times, since existing theories clearly do not satisfy us. The following comments from the British philosopher of ethics Bernard Williams seem relevant here:

The resources of most moral philosophy are not adjusted to the modern world. I have tried to show this is partly because it is too much and too unknowingly caught up in it, unreflectively appealing to the administrative ideas of rationality. … It is not a paradox that in these very new circumstances very old philosophies may have more to offer than moderately new ones.

It is the desire to rectify failure and non-fulfillment in the area of ethics that has led many contemporary philosophers to take recourse in the virtue ethics of the Greek tradition, following mainly the way of Aristotle but adapting his ideas to modern times.

The Ancient Indic Tradition and the Virtue Harmony Within

The search continues so long as the problems persist – on the streets, in our backyards, in schools, in government at all levels, and in the fast-deteriorating natural environment. Dependence on what Williams calls the ‘administrative ideas of rationality’ in ethics is insufficient; rather, he prefers to explore the old philosophies of the Greeks for answers. His search inspires us, in this blog, to move even further back in history to the ancient philosophies of India. There may after all be some clue hidden in those ancient philosophies that is relevant to our needs in today’s world.

There are many good reasons for exploring the wisdom of the East. The Indic tradition is still vibrant, albeit much-waned compared with ancient times. Thus it is possible to apply its spirit readily today, combining yoga and meditation in a holistic way that is often found missing in the West. In this respect there seems to be an advantage here over the Greek tradition which, if found suitable, has to be recreated for today’s applicability in as much as its flow in practice has disappeared.

The Indic system accommodates pluralism in a non-confrontational way while stressing unity, thus avoiding the pitfall of relativism. The animate and inanimate worlds are woven together in a holistic way. Alexander ‘the great’, who was, as we know, a student of Aristotle’s, did show respect for pluralism by not imposing his religion or culture on the people of the lands his army conquered. However, he often allowed his soldiers to mete out harsh and extremely cruel treatment when they faced opposition in battle, a practice not found in ancient India. Instead of the ‘philosopher king’, India had the concept of the ‘saintly king’ (rajarshi)[i], who would have achieved harmony within, combining thinking, feeling and willing, equipping him to build harmony around in the process of administration.

Although the faculty of reason has its abiding influence here, this is not primarily a cognitive experience. The affective aspect of the mind is very much in operation in holding the right kind of attitude in one’s life, and this attitude in turn goes a long way toward shaping the action one performs. Indic philosophy did, over millennia, involve itself in intricate dialectical reasoning. However, the philosophers would refrain from going to the marketplace to argue things, as Socrates did; rather they would wait for ‘the right moment’ — when the student was ready to lapse into deep meditation, which is not possible in the disquiet of the public sphere.

The Gita emphasizes methods for calming the mind to bring it to the right state of harmony through deep breathing and meditation, ultimately for the holistic end of wellness for all living beings in a loving interface with nature. Certainly the end seems appropriate for us today, and the means worth pursuing. Philosophy in India is traditionally called darshana, or viewing. The end of philosophizing is considered as one’s being established in a state where truth is lived in a direct way, not propped up, as it were, by reasoning.

Swami Vivekananda Inspires Unity through Pluralism

Swami Vivekananda first brought the wisdom of India to the West when he addressed the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893. His message was of unity through pluralism, as taught in the Gita. This unity is grounded on the concept of harmony within, which, the Gita says, ‘saves us from great fear’. He was also the first to initiate yoga in the West. However, by ‘yoga’ he did not simply mean the body postures (which are important for their own limited purpose) but the broader areas of wisdom, activity in society, and the shaping of the whole mind. It is only in this holistic context that the postures have true significance.

Again, unity is needed for pluralism to function. Vivekananda saw Indic spirituality as a system wherein each of us follows his tradition in a spirit of co-operation and wherein all of us advance toward the same goal of peace and harmony. Thus he rejects the utilitarianism of John Stuart Mill, who builds his concept of a common good in ethics on the basis of the self-centred motivation of each and every one in society. Instead he stresses the concept of harmony within, for which we all need to prepare ourselves. Here Vivekananda does not see any conflict between science and spirituality. We do not find mention of the concept of harmony within in the Aristotelian system, where self- control is posited against self-indulgence and intemperance.

Harmony within, as opposed to mere self-control, adds meaning to the onward flow of life. It is central in the Indic system, with other virtues operating around it.

The above gives us an outline for both a satisfying theoretical as well as an effective practical ethics, which we shall explore further in future postings.

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[i] Sitanshu K Chakraborty, Retired Professor of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, has done extensive work in the area of the Rajarshi model of leadership for business management today.


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About CUE

CUE logo_sept 9

Cultural Understanding Everywhere (CUE) is an organization based in Toronto to promote understanding across cultures in and through sharing new, relevant thoughts and ideas pertaining to the well-being of the world.

CUE is strongly rooted in pluralism while not upholding ethical relativism. Strengthening the bond of unity in a pluralistic reality is the goal CUE intends to further.

The activities of CUE are not geared to generation of profit for any individual or organization.

Resolving the Disquiet Around and Within – I

Last March, an airplane was intentionally taken to crash landing by its 27 year-old co-pilot, killing all 150 passengers. Andreas Lubitz had been diagnosed as a depressive ‘burnout’ years before the incident took place. He is said to have prepared for and even ‘rehearsed’ the event on a previous flight before enacting it successfully on the tragic day. The world was devastated by the news of so many innocent lives lost as a result of the suicidal mass murder.

Psychologists had apparently been unable to take care of the ailment after the diagnosis was made, as is but normal to expect from the deeply rooted pandemic state that mental depression has assumed in today’s society, while it is safe to assume that they didn’t suspect in the least the possibility of the mass murder as a result of Andreas’ prevailing psychological condition. The simple question that comes to mind is: How did the ‘burnout’ condition take possession of the young man so early in his life? In fact, acute depression is so wide-spread in modern society, across diverse age groups, that repeated occurrence of violence on innocent, unrelated people, often in large numbers at a time, is seen to be committed by the affected agents overpowered by their ailment.

More recently, the news of fatal shooting in a church in South Carolina by a young man on people engaged in their Bible study stunned us all. True, there is a racial overtone present here. However, racism is not expected to have expressed itself in a form it did without being triggered by a severe psychological frustration, it seems safe to imagine. This, along with so many other incidents in recent times of public violence, totally unprovoked, are normally read as isolated occurrences, apparently not linked one to the other, perpetrated occasionally by solitary social misfits who have failed to take proper care of themselves in life. We would like to explore whether there is a social reason connecting a fairly good number of these incidents, if not all.

It might be relevant in this connection to bring to mind the reported surge in episodes of bullying lately at schools in North America, incidents that have often led to deaths. This of course is on top of mindless mass fatal attacks in public places, including schools, in astoundingly quick succession of repeats of similar events, and the abundance of other forms of violence in society where family violence has its fair share, in spite of the legal deterrence in operation. The legal system on its own, as we would expect, does not ensure that people are happy, contented and at peace. It fails to prevent the irresistible inclination to indulge in violent acts, arising out of a deep-rooted discontent and unhappiness, from reaching a widespread, if not epidemic proportion in society, as many believe has happened today. The reason behind the problem lies in the propagation of greed and discontent that the modern way of living is built to generate, which the legal system tries to curb, but is not equipped to take care of at the source.

Meaning in life vis-a-vis meaning of life

Thus, value after all seems to be the issue at hand bereft of which life’s meaning is missing, yielding place to bullying, mass killings and other abhorrent forms of behaviour growing reportedly commonplace each passing day. Choosing any and every value certainly does not lead to enjoying in the meaning of life, as is quite evident. A serial thief and killer, by all means, has a value that fits into his own meaning in life, although he cannot be said to have a meaningful life in so far as his value of life lacks the possibility to provide physical or psychological sustainability, either to himself or to others, bereft as he is of the meaning of life. A celebrity musician may have a meaning in life which may be said to contribute to a meaningful life to a great extent, his own as well as others’. However, without a sustainable meaning of life, he may end his life prematurely, or continue living a fragmented life with drug addiction and other indulgences so long as he is biologically alive, as is commonplace in modern times. The unsustainable part of his character, needless to say, is likely to have an undesirable influence on the fans, especially the susceptible young minds in their formative stage. What such individuals lack is the virtue harmony within to support their proficiencies. The virtue needs to be imbibed both in the individual and the society, to an extent, for the society to continue offering the basis of the quality of life that makes meaningful living possible for individuals.

Positive Psychology and the Virtue Harmony Within

Freud does not have any room for cultivating the virtue harmony within in his philosophy. The process of sublimation does not have a positive status, in as much as he considers it an escape route for the individual in its role of a defence mechanism from the onslaught of the instinctive urge of the libido. Since sublimation, according to him, denies the individual her basic, primary and overwhelming value of life in satisfaction of the instinctive urge, he hesitates to reserve a commendable position for it.

The prominent psychotherapist who has made the area of existential meaning the focal point in his theory and practice is Viktor Frankl. He has talked of the will to meaning in human beings, which he believes makes us contented when channelled in the right way, curing us of our psychological ailments. Once the social dimension of the incidence of psychological depression in today’s life, which finds prominence in the midst of material abundance, is given adequate consideration, we can expect introduction of institutionalized measures to facilitate the road to harmony within while opening the individual to a true meaning of life. This will help check potential mass atrocities committed by people suffering from depression to a large extent, as well as help prevention of the likes of the Wall Street crisis, on the heels of the Enron debacle at the beginning of this century, which occurred in spite of the legal measures in place, and shook the financial stability of the whole world. With the desired greed-management effort accompanying the focus on the virtue harmony within, the future senators in Canada will find questionable ways many of today’s representatives happened to choose, not fitting into a life they would consider meaningful, thus setting examples for others in doing what is expected to be done. Individual therapy by itself may not be enough to prevent another Auschwitz where Frankl was detained and built his Logotherapy later on the basis of his interface with institutionalized torture at its height there. Introduction of Yoga, in its broad sense, meaning connectivity, may be a step to building the virtue harmony within that holds the clue to life’s meaning. The journey is not easy or smooth. But it has to be initiated, at the social level. If we ignore the importance of harmony within in the individual life, and the role of society in upholding it, what happens is the presence of suffering all over, as we see now.

Harmony Within Leading To Harmony Around

Here are a few words on the nature of the virtue that we have talked about so far: Inner harmony for a person means harmony achieved at the cognitive, affective and conative levels. Her cognitive world is harmoniously arranged as she keeps her mind open to new horizons. She has affective harmony within that manifests itself in the expression of dignity in relating to animate and inanimate objects, and forbids eccentricities as inner peace and joy prevail, even in the midst of challenging circumstances. The actions she performs hold together in a harmonious way, too, without being incongruous, haphazard, or the least absurd and exclusive[1], while she is involved in helping ameliorate disharmony around[2], according to capacity and inclination. There is a concurrent harmony holding here across the board combining all the three levels, so that if harmony is found missing anywhere around (cognitive level), the situation affects the person (affective level), triggering her thought process (cognitive level), which may lead to a suitable action befitting the situation (conative level).[3] Although she attempts to ensure that harmony is maintained within and without, she does not lose her cool if the actions planned fail to lead to the desired consequences; neither is she off her balance in a fit of ecstasy if they do.[4] The meaning of life based on harmony within prompts one to look for harmony all the way, and help maintain, and build it if found missing by any chance, not just because it ‘is the best policy’, but for some deeper existential reason. It is but natural that one established to an extent in inner harmony is sensitive to the harmony, or lack of it, within or around. Thus, a person imbedded in the virtue harmony within not only does not feel prone to building satisfaction upon exploitation of fellow beings, with cruelty meted out while vanity reigns supreme, as dishonesty and short-sightedness, resting on self-indulgence, find expression in arrogance; she looks forward to doing good to others, including non-humans, and taking care of the inanimate world with a feeling of affection and respect. No wonder harmony within spills over to establishing harmony outside as needed.

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[1] A person in a state of harmony is not hateful of the vicious people, or even of vice itself, in as much as she transcends the level of vice, in a harmonious way, and sees, with equanimity, its presence in society.
[2] The Gita talks about the involvement of Yoga practitioners in doing good to all.
[3] ‘And all [the] apparently disparate elements,’ as indicated before, combining the cognitive, affective and conative areas, ‘can [be seen to] form a unity in human nature; that is, they can be recognized as a way a human being, given human psychology, could be’. (Rosalind Hursthouse in ‘Environmental Virtue Ethics’, p. 160)
[4] The Gita has dealt with this state in detail.


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Cultural Understanding Everywhere (CUE) – a new perspective


Today’s world is evidently under a severe strain, not only financially and politically – aspects that tend to draw the utmost attention – but also ethically, as ethics relates to the deep level on-goings of the human mind, on the journey to peace and harmony underpinning a true satisfaction and well-being of the individual in society. Here is the need to have a fresh look at the prevailing ways of addressing the existing problems; ways, which have, paradoxically enough, been instrumental in their turn to giving rise to the problems to start with.

To be sure, we are not pleading for one of the existing ‘isms’ as opposed to the other, or one prevailing political theory to the exclusion of another. Here we are aiming at a thorough overhaul of the human thinking process, in tune with the inspirational call from Bernard Williams to go back to ‘very old philosophies’ that ‘may have more to offer than moderately new ones’. Unlike Williams, however, CUE will prefer not to limit the search for clues from the past to resources in the old Greek system. We will go further back in history to the Indic system for the ideas and support needed for building a proper ethical structure suitable for the day.

The world today is in profound unrest, rife with geo-political, economic and religious conflict at several fronts. Corruption at various levels of government and society –  in the West as well as the East –, violence, psychological instability and environmental calamity loom large around us. Frequent repeats of  unprovoked massacres in public places aimed at innocent people is common news all over the world. The financial crisis of 2008, following on the heels of the Enron debacle in 2001, have thrust the global economy into turmoil. These events and their aftermath have been triggered by unchecked greed that defied legal measures. Continued world-wide violence, too, fails to be managed by security strategies, as we can see.

The ruling systems of psychology by and large question the traditionally accepted nature of the human being, and base it on a mechanistic model where freedom is reduced to the freedom of choice, as choice is shaped by the provocations and demands of the senses. Here the concept of human rights takes centre-stage while well-being is understood in terms of satisfying greed, selfishness and related states. No wonder, the situation is exploited by the business world through advertising techniques underpinned by an enthusiasm to safeguard the freedom of choice of people relating to the areas of sensual pleasure and material accumulation.

Ethical issues that attract considerable attention today include those based around sexuality and gender. Although these do have ethical importance in their own right, what is typically found missing is any discussion on the ethics of the state of human freedom in peace and joy – relating to an inner harmony that flows out onto building a harmony outside – away from our exclusive mooring in the demands of the senses. Perhaps the issues, influenced as they are by the politics of identity, could be addressed in a more sustainable and satisfying perspective in the deeper view of human freedom, which the modern civilization neglects.

The perspective is present in history in the traditional, secular thinking in India where ethics is not based on divine dictates, and is compatible with science, even though not reducible to it.

On this site CUE will explore practical solutions to problems connected to the ills of the modern civilization to which we all have fallen prey. Ours is not a religious attempt, as religion is understood in the western world. The academic angle indeed is the guiding mark of our approach.

We look forward to sharing thoughts with you.


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